Abstract

This article provides a state of the art of the growing normative plea for enhanced representativeness, by which we understand a form of representation considering the sociodemographic particularities of society. We look at the Anglo-American plea for group representation and the French debate on parity democracy. Concerned with the structural marginalisation of large numbers of citizens from the political arena, these scholars criticise the abstract concept ofcitizenship and the interpretation of the process of representation as such. The plea for enhanced representativeness faces more than one normative challenge. Dealing with these issues the scholars pleading for enhanced representativeness above all reveal that the issue for or against representation in terms of representativeness is a matter of choice on underlying normative assumptions.